Scaldweed, Cuscuta grovonii, can prevent an invasive plant from using soil microbes to help invade territory - and the parasite can even become more vicious by using those same microbes against its invasive host.
One of the common features of plants they make their own food. But what happens inside a plant when they stop making their food and eat something else?
Mistletoes are very fascinating parasitic plants. Unlike most common plants, mistletoes grow on the branches of other plants and rely on these “host” plants for water and nutrients. Scientists have been trying to...
The substitution rates of chloroplast and mitochondria genes sometimes show tremendous variation in parasitic plants, but it is unclear if this is also true for nuclear protein-coding genes. Su and Hu study six protein...